CES 2014: 4G cars usher in the era of the seriously connected automobile

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At CES 2014, the announcements of 4G connectivity in cars heralds a new generation of automobiles. They’re connected at high speed, providing video in the back seat, streaming audio in front, and up-to-the-second information on surrounding traffic conditions for the driver. An always-connected car is a requirement for a self-driving car.

Audi and Chevrolet announced concrete plans for embedding 4G telematics in vehicles this year. Others have 4G coming. Even Ford, which pioneered Sync plus your own smartphone as a cheap data conduit, is now charting a course toward embedded telematics on its upscale Lincoln brand. Over the next five years, it’s likely that every automaker will follow the lead of General Motors and embed telematics on every vehicle as the cost comes down to as little as $100 per car for 3G, a couple hundred dollars for 4G. (Read: What is 4G LTE?)

Audi’s laser headlights show at CES

Audi again negotiated one of the coveted keynote addresses at CES. 4G was just one facet of CEO Rupert Stadler’s Monday night address. He also announced headlamps using lasers as the illumination source, Audi participation in the Open Automotive Alliance (with Google, GM, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia) to make Android a common operating system in the car, and the almost-mandatory-at-CES self-driving car.

Audi’s 4G announcement was that Audi and AT&T would combine to embed 4G LTE as the communications engine for the Audi Connect telematics system. It will be offered first on the 2015 Audi A3 compact (same size as the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class) and spread across the model line. According to Audi’s accompanying release — Stadler kept his speech short, at least by CES standards — going from 3G to 4G will speed up Audi navigation that is already using Google Earth and Google Street View maps, and enhance downloads and high-definition video streaming to passenger devices. Audi Connect also has Facebook and Twitter alerts, spoken news headlines, 7,000-plus web radio station, and RSS feeds. Audi Connect includes a WiFi hotspot allowing access by eight devices.

It will be interesting to see how Audi prices the data package. When Audi embedded 3G telematics, it offered unlimited data for $30 a month, an exceptional deal . The challenge for automakers as for wireless phone companies is they really want to offer unlimited data for a reasonable price for everyone — everyone but the 5% who use far more data than the mainstream user.

4G LTE for the fourth generation of cars

Audi’s Stadler used the 4 in 4G to suggest we are now coincidentally in the fourth era of automobiles as the motorcar approaches its 150th anniversary. The first era, starting with Daimler and Benz in the 1880s, was creating the car. The second was making it easier to use (no crank starter) and broadly available. The third was adding comfort, safety, features and fuel economy. That era is about to give way to mobile connections, driver aids, and eventually the self-driving vehicle.

Chevrolet leads GM into 4G

Also at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, Chevrolet announced that it would be the first GM brand to offer OnStar 4G LTE, starting with 2015 models of the Chevrolet Impala, Corvette, Malibu and Volt during 2014, followed by the Equinox, Silverado, Silverado HD, Spark and Spark EV. Chevrolet’s senior VP Alan Batey said, “Chevrolet is expected to implement the broadest deployment of 4G LTE in the automotive industry.” Buyers will pay an upcharge, not yet announced, to get 4G OnStar. 3G OnStar is standard on virtually all GM cars sold in the US and Canada.

Like Audi, GM will embed a WiFi mobile hotspot and it will use an external antenna for better range. According to Mary Chan, president of GM’s Global Connected Consumer, “We know that our customers rely on being connected on a daily, if not hourly basis, and they expect to be provided with the information and content they desire with no interruptions.” For the unitiated, that was a job at Ford Sync, which does for free via connected smartphone (with no external antenna) what GM charges $20 a month for.

If you’re an AT&T customer, GM says you can treat the car as an additional device, or buy a separate data package. If you don’t have AT&T, you’ll need to buy the data package.

What you don’t get with 2014 4G: no retrofits, no carrier choice

All this sounds good, but the first round of 4G announcements isn’t perfect, starting with the fact that if you just bought a new Audi or Chevrolet and want 4G, you’re stuck. Everyone knows you need a new smartphone to take advantage of a faster processor or bigger screen. The same thing applies here — no retrofits — except it’s not a $99 subsidized device but a $30,000-$50,000 car. For more than a decade automakers have talked about ongoing upgrades with technologies such as the MOST bus featured on German cars. When navigation moved from CD- to DVD-based a decade ago, in theory, you could upgrade. In reality, you couldn’t. Okay, you can add parking sonar after-the-fact to Hondas.

The other difference between smartphone and smart car is choice in carriers. When you buy a smartphone, you decide if you want the Samsung Galaxy S4 or Apple iPhone 5S and then decide if AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint is best for you. Here, the automaker decides what’s best for the automaker and that’s who you get. With Audi and Chevrolet, it’s AT&T. If you already have AT&T on your phones, you can get a data sharing plan. If you ask about buying an A3 and Corvette with Verizon, you’ll be laughed out of the showroom. Have It Your Way applies to burgers, not car telematics.

Tagged In

this tech is very new. Pretty soon every car stereo shop will be installing these 4G things in any car with any mobile carrier you choose. The limited choice is simply related to the early adoption of this tech. Early adopters are almost always over charged and under served.
By next year Apple will be at CES with a new car stereo head unit with full IOS functionality, multi-carrier capability, and any other bell or whistle you could imagine.

Charles Walker

Fortunately, Android seems to already be beating them to the market!

Tom h

fortunately, or not. There will always be those that do not wish to give their information away for free when they know there is real tangible value to it.
Android is not free and open because ti is some sort of altruistic source of benevolence. it is a data mine, and the data is gold in high quantities.
When people figure out just how much their info is worth they will be more protective.
If you need proof that your data is valuable, ask yourself, “have you ever given a dollar to google, or do you know anyone who has?” Sure they sell google chrome, and they have 3 cities they sell fantastic high speed internet in. but google is one of the most powerful, and valuable companies in the world. That money comes from somewhere. That somewhere is selling your data.

Charles Walker

And all those points are exactly why Android is so great for this! More data mining means more accurate traffic statistics to other drivers. What are you worried about being collected? That it might be collected that you’re spending too much time at the strip club? When it comes to vehicle head units, I think data collection is welcome. Traffic reports will be near perfect!

Bill Howard

4G can be installed by an audio electronics shop or you do it yourself. The integration of a telematics modem and especially a 4G modem opens up the car to features that automaker wouldn’t create or make possible unless it knew the wireless data pipe was there.

alidaxla627

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preilly2

The ‘seriously connected automobile’ also means the seriously tracked family. We can be sure that the tracking data will be given or sold to multiple corporations and governments, too. For me it’s not worth the trade-off.

MefMaf

if you have a smartphone (or an Obama phone) youre already being tracked

MefMaf

if you have a smartphone (or an Obama phone) youre already being tracked

preilly2

Good point. My wife and I still have ‘dumb’ flip phones for that very reason.

preilly2

The ‘seriously connected automobile’ also means the seriously tracked family. We can be sure that the tracking data will be given or sold to multiple corporations and governments, too. For me it’s not worth the trade-off.

MefMaf

save yourself $30 thousand and get a mifi from the carrier of your choice. problem solved.

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